


Afterburn

by CleverSnail



Category: The LEGO Movie (2014)
Genre: Alcohol, Explicit Language, M/M, Sexual Content, Smoking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 14:37:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2471834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CleverSnail/pseuds/CleverSnail
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Debt of Fortune (by paperspot) / Space Between Us crossover. Smutover?</p><p>Features: SBU Benny/DoF Bad Cop</p><p>No longer considered up-to-snuff for spaceflight following the Vega incident, Benny’s been relegated to flying experimental aircraft in the desert. He encounters someone familiar in a rundown motel far from Bricksburg.</p><p>What we got here is basically multi-chapter smut. I regret nothing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: spoilers for Space Between Us
> 
> For my dearest paperspot.

It was well after midnight when Benny finally pulled the Mustang into the dusty parking lot of the small, tired-looking motel. The night clerk—a kid of maybe 17—managed to rent him a room without uttering a single word or even looking up from his phone. You had to give kudos for that level of apathy. Kid was a professional.

Benny grabbed his duffel from the front seat of the GT, his dress jacket from a hanger in the back, and read the room number off his keytag. Thirteen. Well that was fucking ominous. Just where he wanted to stay the night before making two weeks’ worth of flights in untested aircraft. He sighed, hiked the duffel up over his good shoulder. Amazing how superstitious a person could become after free-falling out of the sky in a flaming tin can. He wouldn’t have cared about this shit a year and a half ago. Stupid broken brain. He crossed the parking lot to his room.

There was one other car in the whole parking lot, a pickup that looked like it was held together with rope and spit. It was parked down in one corner of the c-shaped block of rooms. But the only other lit room was next to his. Benny felt for the folding survival knife in the pocket of his trousers. Places like this, you never knew what you might be walking into. He suddenly wished he’d fished his service revolver out from under the front seat. Maybe he’d just throw his stuff down in the room and go back for it.

The room key stuck in the lock like a bastard. Of course it did. But there was no damn way he’d go back to that rotten kid to ask for help. As Benny struggled, the door to the room beside his suddenly flew open. He dropped the key and went for his knife.

“This whole goddamned shithole motel is empty and that fucking kid has to give me a _neighbor_?”

Benny had to look up—way up—to properly see his very tall, very angry new acquaintance. The man looked as if he’d lived half a lifetime in the desert. Deeply tanned, scarred, limbs wrapped in wiry muscle, hair silvering at the sides. There was something vaguely military about him, beyond the dusty olive drab fatigues and faded black tee shirt. And he looked incredibly familiar.

Also, not too hard on the eyes. Not too damn hard on the eyes at all.

For a moment they stood nearly toe to toe, sizing each other up.

Benny watched cautiously as the man surveyed his dress blues, examined his Air Force insigniae, noted the officer’s epaulettes on his short-sleeved dress shirt, grimy from the day’s drive. The man’s hawk-sharp grey eyes came to rest on Benny’s blue garrison cap, and then ticked down to look him full in the face.

And in that second Benny recognized him.

He decided, for the moment, not to volunteer that information.

There was no doubt in Benny’s mind who stood fuming before him: Bad Cop, Business’ right-hand man during the bad old days. He’d been run out of town on a rail years ago when Business went down. Last time Benny’d seen this guy he’d been the absolute epitome of paramilitary precision in mirrored aviators, duty jacket and riot gear. Now, he looked like he’d been to hell and back, chewed up and spit out by the devil along the way. Goddamn, how far the mighty had fallen.

But Benny knew how that felt. Too broken for space. Expendable enough to stuff into the cockpits of untried supersonics. All because of two severed parachute cords. It was the kind of stuff he couldn’t let himself think about for too long. The kind of stuff that could consume a person from the inside out and blind him to all the good that still remained in life. The kind of stuff that had clearly been churning through Bad Cop for a long, long time.

“Give me the fucking key,” Bad Cop said at last, slowly, dangerously. Benny picked the key up off the ground and tossed it to him. He got to work on the lock. “You’re gonna learn to do this _right now_ because I will _not_ be woken up at all hours by you rattling the goddamned lock off the door. Look. Push _in_ when you turn. _Easy_. Please, for the love of fuck, _try it_.”

Bad Cop moved away from the door, crossed his arms belligerently. Benny stepped up. Now, of course, the key turned easily in the lock and Benny opened the door into a dark, musty room.

He heaved his duffel and jacket onto the bed and looked back. “Thanks. Sorry I woke you up.”

Benny’s apology seemed to defuse something inside Bad Cop. The cant of his shoulders changed and he turned away, eyes to the ground. He suddenly looked very, very tired. “Ah, don’t worry about it.” He dragged an aluminum lawn chair from around the corner of the building to the doorway of his open room and settled heavily into it, his boots kicking up dust. He scrubbed his hands hard over his scarred face. “I couldn’t fucking sleep anyway.”

He retrieved a crushed pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one, took a deep pull. Benny watched, mesmerized, as a single bead of sweat slowly trickled down the entire length of his sun-browned neck. He exhaled a plume of smoke luxuriantly into the darkness.

Goddamn it. _Goddamn it_.

Benny ducked quickly into the shadows of his room to adjust uncooperative parts, cursed the tight cut of his dress trousers. He swallowed hard, struggled to compose himself again. Waited a moment for things to settle down. Damn, it sure had been a while. A long, long while. Way too fricking long. And it was starting to get _distracting_.

“Hey listen,” Benny heard himself say in the direction of the figure on the patio, “I have a six pack in my cooler. Want to split it? Might help you sleep.”

Bad Cop took another long drag from his cigarette. He shrugged, stared out into the night. “If you want. I’ll never say no to a beer.”

Benny trotted out into the parking lot.

At the Mustang, cooler in hand, Benny once again contemplated the revolver under the passenger seat. In the end, he decided to leave it. But he _did_ bust open the new box of condoms he’d stowed in his glove box before leaving the city. He stuffed a handful of them into his pocket.

He literally had nothing left to lose.

And that was one hell of a rush.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Benny and BC drink cheap beer and try to get acquainted. Awkwardness ensues.

When Benny got back to the rooms with his cooler, Bad Cop had conjured up another lawn chair and set it out in front of Benny’s door. Benny pulled a beer out of the six pack and handed it off to Bad Cop before falling back dramatically into the empty chair. Then he took a beer for himself.

“Ahh…cheers!” he grinned, folding his garrison cap in half with one hand and stuffing it messily into his breast pocket. “Man, I been waiting for this all day.”

Beside him, Bad Cop had already drained half the can. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and turned his head to Benny.

“So, you’re military, huh?”

Benny cracked open the beer, flicking away the foam as it overflowed. “Yep. Air Force. I’m flying a bunch of experimental craft for the space agency over the next couple weeks.” He gestured vaguely towards the highway with the beer. “Just down the road at the base.” He sucked the spilled beer noisily off the top of the can and licked foam from his lips.

Bad Cop grunted, but his eyes betrayed his interest. “Test pilot for NASA? Didn’t know they still did that. Flying all the fucking crazy ballistics and shit?”

Benny grinned again, wider now, and took a pull from his beer. “Something like that. It’s not piloting warheads anymore, and not riding Holloman’s Daisy Sleds, either. Not like it was in the 60s during Mercury and Gemini. But yeah, some of the machines they strap us into are pretty fricking hairy rides.”

Benny watched Bad Cop’s eyes flicker over his left hand.

“Your girlfriend mind you doing all this dangerous shit?”

Benny took another drink, shook his head. “There’s no girl.”

From where they sat on the patio of the motel Benny could see the constellation of Lyra just edging up over the low roof of the rooms across the dirt parking lot. It had to be coming up on two in the morning. If there was ever a time to play his hand, this was it.

Another mouthful of beer. “There’s no guy, either.”

Dead silence. Benny waited it out, let the silence lengthen, ready to reach for the knife in his pocket if he had to. But he was pretty sure he wouldn’t need it. He counted out 53 full seconds before Bad Cop settled back deeper into his chair, scuffed a boot in the dust.

“Fair enough,“ Bad Cop said, and drained his beer.

Benny allowed himself a tiny grin. He reached for the six pack beside his chair. “Want another?”

“Yeah, why the fuck not.”

Benny handed one over. For a moment they sat together in silence, looking out into the night. Familiar constellations wheeled across the sky. It was the most comfortable Benny had felt in a long time.

“My name’s Ben,” he said at last. “Most people call me Benny.”

Bad Cop cracked open the fresh beer and took a long, slow drink.

“Call me B.”

Benny grinned mischievously. “Letter or insect?”

“Command.”

“Touche.” Benny laughed.

Bad Cop turned in his chair, looked hard at Benny’s face. Benny felt his guts twist up. He’d seen that look before. He knew where this was going. Any comfort he’d felt began to dissolve swiftly.

“I knew you looked familiar. You’re not just some test pilot, are you? You’re an astronaut. I’ve seen you on the news.”

Bad Cop was choosing his words carefully, but Benny could read between the lines. The only astronauts in the news had been the ones involved in the accident. Benny flicked the tab top from his beer can into the dust at the edge of the parking lot. It flew in an a small shining arc, like a tiny rocket seeking orbital velocity. He took a deep breath.

“I _was_ an astronaut, yeah. But not anymore.”

Benny fell silent. There wasn’t much else to say. Quiet settled between them again, but now it felt awkward, oppressive. An echo of Benny’s own failures.

He watched Bad Cop collapse back into himself.

“Well,” Benny stood, brushing a film of dust off his trousers, “I better call it a night. Gotta report in the afternoon.” He dragged his folding chair back against the side of the building, and motioned towards the three remaining cans of the six pack. “Have the rest of the beer, huh? I won’t finish it tonight.”

Bad Cop stood, pulled his wallet from his pocket. “Here. Take a couple bucks.”

“No way.” Benny waved away the offer. “My treat. It was good talking to you.”

Bad Cop opened another beer and sat back down. He lit a new cigarette. “Same.”

Benny dug in his pocket for his key, took one last look over his shoulder at Lyra. Vega had risen into view now, bright and proud. Bad Cop was looking up into the sky, right at the star. Benny wondered if he knew what he was seeing. Wondered if he cared.

And then Benny began to think hard about where the night could go if he didn’t chicken the fuck out and run back to his room to sulk. The condoms crinkled against his fingertips deep in his pocket.

Nothing left to lose.

He decided to take the gamble.

“Hey, you ever seen the Milky Way?”

Bad Cop snorted, took a long slow drag on his cigarette and glanced back at Benny. The merest hint of a grin ghosted across his lips.

“Jesus. Is that a line?”

Benny smirked. “Only if it works.”

Bad Cop quirked an eyebrow.

“Look, we don’t have to go far. Maybe across the highway where it’s darker. I’ll show you where to look, then you’ll always be able to find it. Little astronomy lesson from a washed-up astronaut.”

Bad Cop sat silent, unreadable, eyes still on him.

Benny pulled on his garrison cap and shrugged. “Come if you want,” he said. “I’m just gonna go have a quick look.”

He started off through the parking lot, hands in pockets. He’d only made it a few yards before he heard the aluminum legs of Bad Cop’s folding chair screeching across the dusty concrete.

“Hey. Flyboy,” Bad Cop called.

Benny turned. Waited. His damn heart beating a tattoo in his chest.

Bad Cop was tugging on a leather jacket as he approached, cigarette in his teeth and boots kicking up a halo of dust around him. He wore a scowl so deep it could have been carved in, but his eyes were alive.

“ _Fine_ ,” he sighed, halting before Benny. “I’ll bite. Show me your goddamned stars.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Benny gives Bad Cop an impromptu astronomy lesson in the desert.

There were no headlights visible in either direction as they crossed the highway, side by side. They walked in easy silence out into the desert scrub, keeping the halogen lights of the motel at their backs. Stars spilled out across the sky. No moon tonight. Beneath a lone joshua tree, Benny halted. He looked up and oriented himself to the constellations.

“There,” he pointed towards the southern horizon. “Look there. Lean back and let your eyes adjust. You’ll see.”

“See what?” Bad Cop thumped back against the tree trunk. “It’s just a mess of stars.”

Benny settled in beside him and grinned. “Oh man, B., it’s so much more than that. It’s absolutely amazing what you can see if you know what you’re looking at.”

Bad Cop snorted, but didn’t protest further. Benny could feel him shift ever so slightly. The sleeve of his leather jacket pressed in firmly against Benny’s tricep. Neither moved away from the contact. Benny set his eyes on the horizon.

"So, our solar system—our sun and all the planets we learned about when we were little kids in school—is actually just a teeny weeny little insignificant system in a _huge_ spiral galaxy made up of hundreds of _billions_ of stars.” Benny spread his hands like wings, hundreds of thousands of stars caught in the space between his palms. “And that galaxy—our galaxy—is called the Milky Way. It’s just one of billions of galaxies in the universe. But we don’t need to consider those right now. Just ours.”

Benny was close enough to Bad Cop to hear him breathe, to smell leather and cigarettes and fresh sweat. Bad Cop was still, silent. If he was interested it was impossible to tell. Benny continued anyway.

“The Milky Way is a gorgeous spiral galaxy, and it’s spinning. Rotating at 600,000 miles an hour. It looks a little like a hurricane looks from above, with bands—we call them arms—of stars pinwheeling off from the galactic center.” He drew the shape of the galaxy in the air before them with a finger.

"Our solar system is in one of those arms. A small arm. A spur, really, from a larger one. It’s named for the constellation Orion. And it’s a little more than halfway between galactic center and the outer fringe of the galaxy. So, when we look out into the sky from earth, because we are tucked in between other galactic arms, we can see them. We can view other arms of the galaxy."

Benny pointed upward, felt Bad Cop cant his head in that direction.

"Look, see that star to the east? The bluish one? That’s Vega. And below Vega—that hazy band of light? That’s actually _two_ distinct arms of our galaxy, B. We’re looking across them, through them, from where we are in the Orion arm. They look like they’re overlaying each other but that’s only because our eyes are really bad at judging super far distances.” Benny pointed east. “There’s the Perseus arm.” He moved his hand slightly to the right. “And there’s the Sagittarius arm.”

Beside him, Benny could feel Bad Cop nod almost imperceptively. Benny snuck a quick look at him. Bad Cop was staring straight into the starry haze of the Milky Way.

"And that bright blur to the south of Sagittarius? B., that’s the very center of our galaxy. The eye of this beautiful galactic hurricane we live in. And we can see it with our own eyes. Isn’t that amazing? We can see the shape of our galaxy from right here on earth."

Benny slid his hands deep into his pockets, his vision still skyward.

“This is gonna sound weird, but being able to see where I fit in the cosmos is really grounding for me. No matter where I go, at night I just look up and I know exactly where I belong in all of this.” He shrugged. “Sometimes it’s the only thing that keeps my head above water, you know?”

He grinned sheepishly, angling his head towards Bad Cop.

And the kiss, when it came, caught him completely off guard.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Benny and Bad Cop have a smutty ole time in the desert. Also feels.

Benny tried to recall the last time he’d been good and properly kissed. Maybe Mission Control’s ugly-sweater Christmas party. Or Emmet’s drink-soaked and pot-laden Halloween bash. He hadn’t been particularly picky, partner-wise, on either occasion. Hadn’t had an opportunity to be. And the last time he’d gotten laid? That was even more painful to consider. Before the _Vega_ mission, for sure. Embarrassingly long ago. Back when he had two good arms and a knee that didn’t dislocate on a whim. Back when he was a hero.

But he never imagined he’d end his sexual drought like this, pushed up against a tree in the desert with the Butcher’s tongue in his mouth.

Not that he was complaining.

Not. At. All.

Benny leaned into the kiss, bold and open-mouthed and breathing hard already, beyond shame, as Bad Cop pressed against him. Bad Cop tasted of tobacco and alcohol, his warm breath tart and hoppy with the beers he’d shotgunned back at the motel room. Benny drew his arms up around Bad Cop’s shoulders, wincing a little as he overextended his repaired rotator cuff. He probably shouldn’t have fucked off on the PT all those months ago. He slid the leather jacket off Bad Cop’s shoulders, down his arms. Bad Cop shrugged it off, tossed it unceremoniously onto the ground, his mouth still on Benny.

Their kiss deepened, mouths wide and lips soft, tongues sliding slickly together. Bad Cop curled one large hand carefully around the back of Benny’s head, an improvised cushion against the bark of the tree. Benny found it a strangely thoughtful gesture from a man who’d spent nearly a decade offing people like himself. But he leaned back into the cup of Bad Cop’s palm just the same. It felt intimate. Predator and prey at peace.

Benny let his fingers grow bold, let them slide beneath Bad Cop’s tee shirt, let them tangle in soft curls of chest hair and rub across tender nipples. Bad Cop groaned low into his mouth and Benny’s cock jumped impatiently, caught between the press of their bodies. And then Bad Cop’s firm hand was on him, tracing the outline of Benny’s hardening flesh through his slim, tailored trousers, fingers running all along the length of him. Benny moaned. He couldn’t help himself. And he didn’t care how pitiful he sounded. It had been ages since he’d felt a hand other than his own between his legs, and goddammit if he wasn’t going to thoroughly enjoy himself tonight.

There was a sharp tug at Benny’s waist as Bad Cop hitched open his belt. Arousal bloomed hot in his belly, crept up his spine and slithered down his legs. Time began to gimbal wildly. He felt like he was piloting an F/A-18 with a broken throttle, edging in on Mach 1, with no possibility of slowing and the craft barely under control, going faster, faster, faster. Stubble scraped painfully across his neck. Bad Cop kissed him hard just below the jaw, firm lips and sharp teeth punishing his sunburned skin. As Benny reeled back from the sensation, a calloused hand slipped into his briefs and curled tight around his cock. Bad Cop’s roughened thumb began to slide in slick, slow circles around and around the swollen tip.

“Oh _God_ ,” Benny groaned into Bad Cop’s ear.

Bad Cop drew his head up from Benny’s reddening neck and pressed their mouths together again in a deep kiss, his hands working away skilfully below. Benny widened his stance, crushed his cock deeper into Bad Cop’s palm. Needy, desperate. Benny’s fingernails dragged through Bad Cop’s hair and down the back of his neck, traced the shapes of the muscles that knit Bad Cop’s shoulders beneath his tee shirt. Benny let his mind run wild with images of those shoulders naked and covered in a sheen of sweat—images so vivid he could nearly taste salt on skin.

 _God_ , he wanted it.

Bad Cop pulled away from the kiss, opened his eyes: sea-grey, reflecting the halogens from the far-off motel. They were remarkable eyes. Benny quirked his lip. Ten, fifteen years ago he’d have let himself get completely lost in eyes like those. For a moment they simply looked at each other. And then Bad Cop sank to his knees, tugging down Benny’s trousers as he went.

Benny had to clutch at Bad Cop’s shoulders to keep from collapsing. He was sure he was about to expire from joy. One large hand curled around the back of Benny’s upper thigh, fingertips pressing hard into his flesh, while the other attended to his cock. The feel of Bad Cop’s warm, wet mouth slowly enveloping him, inch by inch, was beyond amazing. Beyond any late-night fantasy he’d dreamed up for himself, alone in his bed and pumping unceremoniously into his own fist.

Benny leaned back into the tree trunk and closed his eyes, let the waves of sensation tug at his guts, pool hot and heavy in his groin. The Butcher was no amateur, that was for damned sure. Benny looked down, watched Bad Cop devour his cock, watched tongue and mouth and desert-roughened fingers move in tandem along his swollen, slick length. Headlights from the highway illuminated the tips of Bad Cop’s hair, showed his brow furrowed in deep concentration, before darkness blanketed them again. Bad Cop made no sign that he’d even registered the appearance of the car. He was focused on his task, precise in his movements, and Benny was happily reaping the rewards.

But the image captured in the headlights soon began to prick at Benny’s conscience: this virtual stranger kneeling heavily on the pebbled ground giving him head. He tried to focus, tried to keep his mind on the astounding sensations moving up and down his cock, but he couldn’t. Another set of headlights appeared and lit the entire scene again. Cold shame spread through Benny’s chest as he peered down. Guilt twisted through his belly. This whole evening he’d been like an animal in rut, hell-bent only on his own pleasure. Crissakes, he was better than that. They could go back to his room. There was still plenty night left. He could show this guy a good time. A _damned_ good time.

"Hey," said Benny, resting his hand on Bad Cop’s forearm, stilling him.

Bad Cop looked up, letting Benny’s cock slip slowly from his lips. He swiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. “What?”

Benny crouched down, drew eye to eye with Bad Cop. Confusion flickered briefly in Bad Cop’s eyes, and then suspicion, but he stilled it almost immediately. His face became a mask again.

“Listen, you don’t have to kneel here in the fucking dirt. I don’t want you to have to do that.” Benny kept his hand on Bad Cop’s arm. He let his fingertips brush lightly back and forth through the hair there.

There was a split-second change in Bad Cop’s features and suddenly the air was charged.

Fury rose in his eyes and he shook off Benny’s hand roughly. “I don’t _have_ to do _anything_.” He voice grew low. “And I sure as fuck don’t need your pity.”

Benny flinched, taken aback. The words stung. He searched Bad Cop’s face, hard. There was some terrible pain there he couldn’t understand, simmering just below the surface, and he’d somehow managed to stir it up. And wounded the man’s pride to boot. Goddammit it all to hell. After several long seconds, Benny gave a small nod.

“You’re absolutely right.”

Benny hitched up his trousers in both hands and stood. He began to reassemble his clothing, silent, eyes to the ground.

Bad Cop hauled himself off the sand, jabbed an accusatory finger at Benny. “I do _exactly_ what I want to do, and I don’t need you making decisions for me about whether I should feel shitty about it or not.”

“I’m sorry.” Benny gingerly arranged his still-hard cock in his briefs. “The ground looked uncomfortable. And I thought you deserved better than sucking me off to an audience on the interstate.”

He attempted to fasten the button of his trousers over the bulge, failed twice. “I was gonna invite you back to my room so we could fuck on a bed like human beings. That’s all. There was no judgement. Not from me.”

Benny threw up his hands in frustration at his uncooperative cock. His trousers hung open. He swiped his hands through his crew cut, rubbed hard at his eyes.

“ _Fuck_. Look, I’m gonna go behind that bush over there and get rid of this thing. Thanks for a nice night, B. I mean it. It was a great night. Best one I’ve had in a long time. I’m sorry it ended badly. Take care of yourself, okay?”

Benny shuffled away unsteadily into the near shadows. He’d barely settled himself behind the creosote bush and shoved his hand deep into his pants when familiar combat boots scuffed into view. He looked up. Way up.

Those goddamned grey eyes.

Bad Cop extended his hand, offered Benny a nominally less severe scowl.

“C’mon,” Bad Cop said, after a moment. “Let’s go in. I’m sick and fucking tired of sand.”


End file.
